Have Your Cake and Enjoy it Too

Say goodbye to the old adage, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

If you’re in a real life situation, one where you actually have cake, you should totally eat it. And enjoy it, too.

Gasp! A nutritionist saying to have cake! Yup. Well, not really. But YES.

Mostly, I don’t want you to apologize for having your cake.

In the scheme of our lives, we’re going to eat “bad” things. We’re going to have off periods, whether it’s a few too many desserts in your week or a few months where you fall off the proverbial health wagon. That’s normal and natural and necessary–if we were perfect all the time we might as well be dead. Finding balance is being able to stray from it so you can return to it again and appreciate it. I digress…(not that sorry)

It’s when those “bad” foods haunt you, guilt you and affect your behavior that you should pay attention to them. For some people, having too much cake in general is a pitfall of their wellness, but check it if you’re a healthy person punishing yourself for indulging or satisfying a craving. (Ya know, when you only eat half a slice of the gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free cake and you still tumble into a realm of self loathing?) Realize that you’re only creating stress and taking up a whole lot of headspace about…cake. That self-created anxiety is not worth it. It’ll spoil all the goodness you’re doing for your body the rest of the time.

Have your piece of cake, eat it and enjoy it too. Eat it mindfully–taste all the incredible flavors, feel how it lights up your senses. Even better, enjoy that cake with friends. Enjoy your cake outside. Enjoy your cake to celebrate. Then what would happen if the post-indulge guilt didn’t exist? What other emotional and physical space would open up if you allowed yourself to relish in the experience, the whole experience, of eating your cake.

I bet you’ll be more satisfied than you thought. I bet you’ll find that your digestion works in your favor. I bet you won’t want to eat as much cake.

Because when you want it, you eat it and you feel badly about it, well, those are the only truly empty calories.